I just mounted on the 218 what I believe to be the perfect scope for this little levergun, a Leupold 2-7x28 Compact (thanks TNBigBore
). After a few shots to get her dialed in, I shot this dandy group with ammo from Custom Cartridge. It's loaded with the Hornady 45 gr. bullet at 2650 measured through my chronograph.
Then I had several 356 Win. loads with bullets I cast from Ranch Dog's 35 cal. mold. The winner was 38.0 gr. of H335 which gave a velocity of 2025 fps. 5 shots about 1.5"
The Blackhawk gave me a little trouble. The base pin kept wanting to jump the latch, even with light loads. It feels like there is adequate tension on the latch, but something is not right with it.
As far as accuracy goes, it was kind of hit and miss. Some loads, even light loads, wanted to string vertically. The best load of the day was the one I really wanted to do well. It was my 185 gr. cast bullet with 15.0 gr. of LilGun. That dude was smoking out of the Blackhawk at 1256 fps with outstanding accuracy. It's hard to tell from the target because the paper was soggy, but there are six shots there about the size of a silver dollar, and that's about as good as I can do with iron sights at 25 yards.
Here's one of the lighter loads I tried with a 158 gr. SWC at 950 fps. It shows the extreme vertical stringing.
Any ideas on what's causing that?
Also, what can be done with the cylinder base pin jumping out? I've only had one Blackhawk in the past and it was a 44, but it never gave me any trouble like this.
